


love letter to the hills

by knapp_shappeys



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Experimental Style, F/F, Flash Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knapp_shappeys/pseuds/knapp_shappeys
Summary: The hills took from her. They also gave to her. Perhaps she should be grateful for that.
Relationships: Linda Fairbairn/Theresa of Liechtenstein
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	love letter to the hills

**Author's Note:**

> I drove out to the end of a dead-end road where I once saw a snake and a squirrel wrestling on the shoulder, looked out over the valley for a bit too long, and now I have this. I hope it makes sense

The thing that strikes her the most about this land is the silence. It is so far removed from the paved streets of Europe, where she was born. A whole world away from the stone buildings off which voices and cart wheels and footsteps echo. 

But out here there is only overwhelming silence. Occasionally there might be a breeze, and perhaps it will stir up the scrubby things that pass for bushes here and make them rattle, or dry them so that they disengage from their roots and roll across the dirt paths. If she pauses, listens very carefully, she might even hear a rattle and begin to walk again: but faster, grateful for the thick leather boots she wears. At night—and of course she almost never ventures out then, except for emergencies—sometimes she will hear the _yip-yip_ of wild dogs in the squat sparse trees, serenading one another to sleep.

She shades her eyes with a hand and gazes out over the valley, feet propped up on a stone. Her gaze is drawn irresistibly to the hills, placed as some sort of prelude to the dark mountains that soar to the sky behind them, capped with vague hints of white. Not snow, apparently—it’s too hot for it here. Snow doesn’t belong here.

She’s got a vague feeling she doesn’t belong here either. In town they tell stories of the people who used to live here but are all gone for some reason or another. Fled, killed, died of illnesses. They insist this land is meant for them now.

Doesn’t explain why the sun is still oppressive out here in the dust.

She slides her hand into a pocket, flips open a watch. Only a few minutes here, and then she will continue her walk to the post office.

Like folds of a brown skirt, the hills rest unevenly on the valley floor.

She closes her eyes, hand smoothing over her dress. It’s about five years behind the times, but that doesn’t matter to the brush or the sky or the hawks circling around her, unsure of whether she’s carrion or not. Once it was green. That’s faded. She can’t afford new clothes out in this empty land—cloth doesn’t come regularly.

She wonders if the hills had been green once too.

They tell her the hills are givers. They say the hills are what drive the currents of wind through this valley and cool it off. They say that the hills teem with life. Various game and creatures, and some edible plants.

When she sees the hills, she remembers that they are takers as well.

She isn’t stupid. She knew not to come out alone, and she did not come here alone. They had been with a mail company, riding up and down the prairies in a single coach. Days at a time, just themselves with sacks of mail and stories and talk.

But every good thing had to come to an end, and so they had come out here—they were told there were opportunities to be had. Rail was the new innovation, and the silence that had once reigned over the valley had no longer been total. Occasionally on the valley floor, one could hear the shriek of a whistle.

One evening, he had gone into the hills with some other men. An expedition, he’d claimed.

He’d never come back.

The hills had taken him as they had given to the town.

It wasn’t her loss—not really, anyway, as they had not come out here married. As far as people knew, she was just the heiress to the local railman, there to further his legacy as a clerk at the local station, and he was also a worker for the railroad. It made sense for him to chaperone her out here—at least that was what people had believed. 

She was fine with that.

The hills were folds of a skirt resting on the valley floor.

There’s another—not a sister.

Fingers tangled in belt loops, denim rough and stiff. Didn’t care that she’d given of herself before. 

Under a broad-brimmed hat usually worn by the _rancheros,_ a round face, freckled cheeks.

One would ask what a Scotswoman was doing on a _rancho,_ but she doesn’t care about that. Not when it is sweet evening, and their lips meet, and she fumbles with the catch on her skirt, letting it spill to the wooden floor of her cabin.

Even the wild dogs look away and blush, the things they do as the owls call to one another.

Sometimes she walks to the fence of the _rancho,_ politely nods to the men wrangling cattle there, who tip their hats to the lady in response.

She sees her roping cattle into a paddock, braid snapping in the wind as she whistles for a herding dog. Rope whistling through the air as she pulls an animal into the enclosure. Her quiet words to the horse as she drops the reins and dismounts smoothly.

 _How d’you do,_ she calls out over the fence, polite. Always polite.

 _I am well, thank you._ She holds on tighter to her worn parasol.

They often talk like this—polite exchanges over the fence. One day she came out of the hills and there she was.

The hills took one from her, but they gave her someone else.

She rises from her perch on the stone and gathers her mail. 

A gift under a bandanna, woman in denim and arms bronzed by the sun. A night-time gift, away from the oppressive sun and the circling hawks and rattlesnakes and train whistles and stagecoaches. Skin damp with sweat, chaps and jeans and shirt and dress and stockings strewn on the floor, horse softly snuffling outside the door.

Whispered words once the candle is extinguished, hands rough from hard labor but soft, always soft, when it comes to her body.

Tonight the hills will bring her that gift again.

Perhaps she should be grateful for the hills for that. 

And so she is.


End file.
